Android and Wherigo

Wherigo cartridges
can add a new level of enjoyment to a geocache. It makes
finding
of the cache more interactive. They can be as simple as
taking a
tour of a park, or made into a complex story such as slaying a dragon
that is guarding the treasure. It makes finding a cache more
than
just following the arrow.

In the past, to complete a Wherigo
cache, you needed
a GPS enabled Pocket PC or a GPS with a built in Wherigo player.
With the advent of smartphones, Wherigo has become available
to
everyone. As a result, many more Wherigo cartridges are being
created for your enjoyment.

To play a Wherigo on an Android device,
you need to
download the Wheryougo
app. Getting a cartridge to work on an Android is not as simple as it
first appears. Hopefully I can shed some light on the various
methods used to get the Wherigo player up and running so you can be out
playing and finding new caches.

1. Requirements

To play Wherigo cartridges on an Android
device, you
first need an Android device, Wheryougo
app, and possibly an SD card. Some phones have internal
memory
that appears as an SD card to some apps, other phones require you to
add an SD card. If you are going to use your phone for
Geocaching, I would suggest buying an SD card anyway as the internal
memory is usually very limited. MicroSD cards,
the type used on most smartphones, can be purchased for less than $10
at any office, electronics, or department store.

addendum: I have recently upgraded my phone to 4.2. Seems the
WhereYouGo app does not see my external SD card, but sees the internal
RAM just fine. Don't know if it is a problem with the original Android
4.2 OS or the modified version I'm using. Either way, after running the
app, search the internal memory as well as the SD card to see where the
WhereYouGo directory is located and put the cartridges there.

2. Preliminaries

First install and format the SD card on
your phone
according to the phone's instructions if you haven't already done so.
Next, locate and install the Wheryougo
app onto the phone. Run the app once and exit so the player
can
set up the directories and other things it needs to do on first run.

Next, you will need to download a
Wherigo cartridge.
Cartridges are files which contain the information for the
game
you are going to play. Groundspeak made a nice demo game
called
Wherigo
Player Tutorial. For
now, we are going to download the
cartridge to a desktop computer or laptop, then transfer the file to
the Android. Log onto Wherigo.com using your Geocaching.com
name
and password. Once on the site, click on "play" on the menu
at
the top, then click on "Download the Wherigo Player Tutorial" in the
section labeled "resources for Players." Or you can just
click this
link to go straight there.
Next step is to click "Download",
then where it says "download cartridge file for:" select "Pocket PC
Device." Important:
You must download the Pocket PC
version, none of the other versions will work on the Android. Next,
click on "Download Now" and save it to a folder on the
computer.

3. Installing the Cartridge

Now comes the toughest part.
Getting the
cartridge from your PC to the Android. There are several ways
to
do this.One way is to unmount your SD card (read the manual on how to
do this with your device) then plugging the card into a card
reader. Another is to connect the phone to the computer via a
USB
cable. A third option would be to use Blue tooth to talk to
the
computer. You can also use an Air sharing program and WiFi.
Also, you can use cloud storage, such as Dropbox, to transfer
files. Detailed instructions would be difficult, if not
impossible as each device and each method has its own procedure for
connecting to a computer. Consult your manual, usually a page
on
transferring files between phone and computer.

Once you manage to get your phone to
communicate
with your computer, you need to find the Wheryougo folder on the SD
card. Usually, you will find it as a subfolder of
"external_sd"
or in the root folder if using a card reader. If you have
trouble
locating the folder, you could try your OS search feature and search
for "Wheryougo" on the phone. Once you find the folder, just
drag-n-drop the cartridge file into the folder.

4. Running the Cartridge

Now that you have the cartridge loaded
into the
proper directory, you need only to run the app. The first
thing
you probably want to do is go into the Settings menu and customize the
app for you. Most importantly are the Localization options.
Change Length, Altitude, Speed and Angle units to what you
prefer. Next, go to the GPS menu. There you will
see a
"radar" image of all the satellites the app is detecting. If,
after a few minutes, you do not see any satellites on this screen, make
sure that the phone's GPS is on and the button at the bottom labeled
"GPS On" is green. Now that you have the app set up and the
GPS
working, press the Start button on the main menu. Hopefully,
if
you have everything done right, you should see a list of
cartridges available to play. Click on the Tutorial
cartridge,
find a big field to play in, and have fun.

5. Downloading a cartridge
without a computer

It is possible to download the cartridge
directly to
the Android device without using another computer to transfer the
files. If you tried it with the default web browser, you
probably
discovered that it does not work. To get it to work, you need
two
apps. Firefox
Browser for Android and Download
all Files. I have
heard that Opera
also works, but I have no experience with it.

To download the cartridge, log onto
Wherigo using
Firefox. Once there, navigate to the cartridge you wish to
download. Click "Download," then Select "Pocket PC Device,"
then
click "Download Now," just like you did on the PC. The
cartridge
will be downloaded to a temporary folder, then Download all Files will
open, or possibly a window will pop up with "Complete action using,"
which you would choose "Download all Files." Once the
Download
all Files app opens, click on the dropdown list under "Folder" and
select "Browse." Navigate to the "Wheryougo" folder and click
"Select this folder." Next, click "Save File" After
the
file is saved, you can close the "Download all Files" app and the
Firefox browser.